


I’ll Keep Your Memory Vague

by Lirial89



Category: Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 06:44:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirial89/pseuds/Lirial89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Dresden kink meme prompt - that John's memories of Harry were erased by the BlackStaff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I’ll Keep Your Memory Vague

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if I'll be continuing this but if i get inspired again I will. 
> 
> If someone wants to take over it you're welcome to just as long as you let me know.

Title:- I’ll Keep Your Memory Vague  
Pairing:- Harry Dresden / John Marcone  
Warnings:- Mind manipulation, past child abuse, angst  
Kink:- amnesia fic,  
Changes to Canon:- Storm Front and Fool Moon and just months apart instead of over a year, Harry and Susan were just a casual thing – no deep emotional connection, no war with the Red Court, Susan not Vamped, Harry traded three favours to Lea and just three favours not his life, Summer Night still happened but without the threat of the Red Court, Harry has Mouse.  
The rest will be in third person, not first like this chapter. Song lyrics at end of chapter.

Chapter One – Somebody’s Crying

\---

It’s been a bad day. 

 

Hells Bells, it’s been a bad life in general. The last time I was truly happy was when I was six and my father was still alive. I’m twenty-seven in four days, that means I’ve had twenty-one years of what I suppose I’d call angst (a term I most certainly did not get from the romance novels I get for Bob).  
Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day I escaped Justin for the last time, the day I was so terrified and angry that I lost control of my power and burnt the mansion down with the three of us inside. I escaped the house suffering from smoke inhalation and shock, I saw Justin burn – I made myself watch, I never wanted to forget what could happen if I lost my temper again – I couldn’t find Elaine and for years I thought that I had killed my best friend, my ex-girlfriend, my betrayer. 

 

I hated myself for years.

 

Tomorrow will be the anniversary of my trial and beginning of my life under the Doom of Damocles, I spent ten years knowing that if someone – anyone in the White Counsel claimed I had been breaking one of the seven Laws of Magic, that I’d be executed before I had a chance to plead my case. Ten years of death threats and almost constant fear, I’d been lucky that while Warden Morgan hated me and everything I represented, he had this driving honour that refused to allow him to lie. This personality trait had made him tell the Counsel that I had been willing to die to stop a demon from getting loose, that I’d stopped a black magic ritual done by a Warlock who was selling a degenerate magical drug to vanilla mortals, one with irreversible side effects. They had rescinded to Doom from over my head and told me that I was no longer considered a threat.

 

This didn’t stop Morgan from stalking or threatening me whenever something happened in Chicago that involved forbidden magic. Or when he thought I was thinking about doing ‘evil, dastardly things’ or when he got bored, had time off, was in the neighbourhood, thought of me or when one of the Senior Counsel told him too.

 

I may be person non-grata with the majority of the Counsel but I’m sure their feelings towards me are far less than mine to the whole institution. They may hate me, fear what I can do or hold onto the idea that I’m this way because my mother was a rule breaker too but I spent four mostly bad years in foster care, six with Justin who could have taught sadism professionally and another ten waking up each day knowing that with one word, one lie, one half-truth I’d be executed, I’d be shoved on my knees and the last thing I’d see would be the flashing steel of the sword before it bit into my neck. 

 

No. They may hate and fear me, what I represent but when I looked at one of them, when I thought ‘White Counsel’ I didn’t think ‘respect/good/safety/right’ I thought ‘fear/hate/power/danger/not-to-be-trusted’ – after all Justin was a respected Senior Counsel Member and he had tortured the magic out of me, bringing it out far, far too early. Couldn’t trust them, not with anything. I wished I had the power to get rid of them, to give the young ones a chance of a real life not this half existence the counsel forced on us.

 

Speaking of people I couldn’t trust when push came to shove, Murphy. I like the woman, love her fire, her spirit but she would never give me the benefit of the doubt, never give me a chance to explain why I did what I did. And I had earned this from her; I had earned the right for her to hear me out. For her to trust that there were some things I couldn’t tell her, she knew enough that she should have trusted me. Stars and stones, the woman had seen my soul, and she still clung to the idiotic belief that she was always right, her way was the right way, her moral high-ground was better than mine. She physically struck me when I was handcuffed and cooperating, what right did she have to judge? And Hells Bells I can just imagine what she’d say about my past connection with the Gentleman of the City.

 

And curious, beautiful Susan, using me for stories. She’d get herself killed soon chasing a bigger scoop and that would be tragic but I wasn’t the boy I once was. It wouldn’t be my fault if she looked into the wrong thing and it ate her, it would be hers. And if and when that happened I’d mourn, probably kill the thing that killed her and then I’d move on with my life, I’d walk away.

 

I’m good at that now. I didn’t used to be, I clung to the memories of Elaine, of the shame I felt at not being able to save her but now that I know she sold herself to Summer. I can’t save her anymore, I never could, I know that now. The girl I grew up with, the one who was a mix between sister and lover? She’s dead, has been since the fire eleven years ago, the thing that wears her face? That has her memories? As far as I’m concerned it’s a changeling from Summer that looks like her. She’s betrayed me twice now, there won’t be a third.

 

And John, I still miss my John but Gentleman John Marcone isn’t the man I was in love with when I was fifteen, he’s like a shell of that man. And he doesn’t remember me, or he doesn’t want to but when I came back to Chicago after my forced exile with Ebenezer McCoy, I looked him up, I found him and I also found that he didn’t want me anymore, didn’t know me and that hurt. It hurt so bad and being me I turned my pain into anger, into disgust about who he’d become but I still love him – or more to the point, I’m still in love with his memory. That’s why when I spoke to him in his car I was able to say no, just by thinking about who he’d become. When he broke into my office I was tempted, so tempted to say yes, to work for him, to be able to see him regularly, to talk to him – but he’s not my John, not anymore and it would break my heart to see him as he is on a regular basis and not have him remember me, remember our relationship. So I said no and I’ll keep saying no, because I’m a stubborn bastard and because every time I see him it hurts and I’m good a converting pain and fear into anger. 

 

Tomorrow I’ll go to Mac’s, I’ll get drunk, and I’ll probably end the night with crying into either Mister or Mouse’s fur and I’ll go back to my life the next day, I’ll pretend I’m ok that I don’t still hurt from John, that I’m ok with Elaine faking her death for eleven years, that I don’t hate the Council, that I don’t sometimes I want to show Murphy what I could really do.  
That I don’t hate who I pretend to be. 

 

That I’m not screaming and bleeding inside, that I’m not broken.

 

 

I'll keep your memory vague  
Finger Eleven

This won't break your heart  
But I just think it could  
Cause I haven't tried as hard as I should  
To separate you from everything I do  
But I would never want to come between us two

I'll keep your memory vague  
So you won't feel bad about me  
I'll say the things that you said  
Sometimes so it reminds me

Now I'm thinking back  
To what I said before  
I hope your heart won't have to hurt anymore  
Cause it's really not that sad from here  
Because the moments I can feel you near  
They keep you close to me my dear  
And if they ever become too clear...

Now you've gone away  
Don't worry it's ok  
That you're gone away  
Further than yesterday  
But you'll never leave these scenes  
My mind replays

Where in the world have you gone now?

 

Lyrics Somebody's Crying  
by Chris Isaak

I know somebody and they cry for you.  
They lie awake at night and dream of you.  
I bet you never even know they do, but somebody's crying.

I know somebody and they called your name.  
A million times and still you never came.  
They go on loving you just the same, I know that somebody's trying.

So please, return the love you took from me.  
Or please, let me know if it can't be me, I know when,  
Somebody's lying, I know when somebody's lying.

I know that somebody's lying, I know that somebody's lying.

Give me a sign and let me know we're through.  
If you don't love me like I love you.  
But if you cry at night the way I do I'll know that somebody's lying.

So please, return the love you took from me.  
Or please, let me know if it can't be me.  
I know when somebody's lying, I know when somebody's lying.  
Oh I, oh I......


End file.
